


Dead Bodies

by TokyoDAZE



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Existentialism, F/M, Gen, Grief, Grief/Mourning, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 12:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6753124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TokyoDAZE/pseuds/TokyoDAZE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid sees something sick and twisted in the way the lifeless are treated and wants to join in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Bodies

**Astrid Kirchherr**

The roar of the ambulance’s grumbling engine was a deafening whirring in her ears. Everything was shuddering along with it, and she could feel something cold slowly freezing up in her veins, beginning from the very tip of her toes, making its way up to her thighs, then her waist and then her chest and neck until it finally engulfed her head in its ice. It was a realization of sort—it appeared slowly, then became a conscious idea, and then a conscious concept, then a conscious thought. Something _real_. The weight in her arms was not her beloved fiancé. Not anymore.

  
It was a dead body. Lifeless. Worthless. It would never move, never breathe, never flicker again. No more laughing, smiling, or creating. Stuart Sutcliffe could do that. A dead body could not.

  
Now Astrid was the only soul left in that ambulance, aside from whoever was driving the damned thing or anyone else. _Fuck them._ They were too late. They couldn’t save him, and no matter how quickly they drove, there was no more hope. He was gone. In his place? _A dead fucking body._ God damn it, she hated dead bodies. Dead bodies were everywhere. She remembered a time when she passed a shore during that stupid fucking war that was apparently important enough for a countless million innocent people to die in. Dead bodies littered that place like leaves in autumn and from where she was standing, she could see the ocean had become dark red as blood itself. Astrid almost pitied the sea life for having to deal with all that, but really didn’t care all that much. The dead bodies dappling the coast were just that. Dead bodies. Not soldiers. Soldiers fought, even if it was for something fucktastically stupid, like, for instance, power-hungry racist, sexist, and homophobic dictators. Dead bodies didn’t. “We must honor those who died,” she remembered hearing. _Sure, okay. Like commemorating those lifeless human-shaped lumps of meat will help anything. Indeed, very tactical! You deserve an award._

  
It almost seemed like God himself was mocking her when Stuart as well became a dead body. Right there in her arms, too. Somewhere in the heavens, He was having a laugh at her misery and discontentment with the world. She wondered if Stuart’s soul would be going anywhere after this—she had obviously heard that good people went to heaven and in her eyes, Stuart was a very good man that deserved that sort of fate, if not better, but the concept somehow made little sense to her and that she never really liked God anyway for how miserable most of her life had been and how He did little to help, so she wouldn’t want her beloved to be sharing a plane of existence with Him. Of course, perhaps there wasn’t anything. He’d probably just be dead-dead. Like sleeping forever, and without even the slightest dream of comfort. After all, if there was anything human that dead bodies did, it was sleep. Except forever.

  
Eventually, the roaring in her ears died down (just like Stuart, she remarks bitterly to herself) and after a long pause, the ambulance doors open to a hospital entrance. A man tells Astrid to stand up and get off so they can take care of the “patient.” She slowly placed the body back down on the cot, then stumbles out into the blaring light with a sickly pale smile on her face. Another man is there to guide her elsewhere, probably a waiting room or somewhere of that sort. She looks back at the people next to the ambulance with the steely and hard shards of glass that were her eyes, and just before she leaves, she whispers, “Jetzt ist es zu spät!”

 

 

It wasn’t long; the people told Astrid what she already knew: Stuart Sutcliffe was dead. She pretended to be grievous, but in her heart she didn’t feel anything. Why mourn? It wouldn’t bring him back. Hell, they could build monuments and galleries in his memory and the corpse wouldn’t so much as bat an eyelash. It didn’t work that way for anyone. It was pointless to her, regardless for the thoughts of anyone else.

  
It was almost as if people cared more about dead bodies than they did living ones.

  
Maybe that was it.

  
People liked dead bodies.

  
Astrid left the hospital with a grave new inhibition. The sun was setting, and so was her purity.

  
If dead bodies is what people want, then that’s what they’re gonna get.

 

 

“I’m really sorry, Astrid.” Klaus murmured, his gentle eyes rested on her.

  
The moon had awoken, then once again had fallen into slumber. The sun replaced its post on the horizon, peeking in through the window as if to make sure everything was alright, like a policeman during his shift. Astrid stared blankly at the cup of tea held in her small hands which she noticed were trembling. It had been a long time since she had felt this shaky, the last time being when she had first met Stuart. She was so nervous then—he had instilled feelings in her soul, bringing some sort of point to her existence. So many emotions, she remembered. Now he was dead, and there were none. Nothing to be felt over a lifeless corpse. Heh.

  
“What we… will tell the others?” She asked quietly, hoping he would identify the waver in her voice as grief.  
Klaus leaned back in his chair, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully. “George and Stuart’s mum will be coming to Hamburg from airplane. The Beatles surely will be there for greeting them. We can go there, too, so we can tell. Already George and Stuart’s mum knows, I sended to them messages.”

  
“... When they will arrive?”

  
“This after-noon… I think on two o’clock.”

  
 _So we have the entire morning to dwell on this,_ Astrid pressed her pale lips together in a grim manner. She had been hoping to be able to deliver the news sooner, but it seemed even that would have to wait. Doing something, anything, would probably help get her mind off this. It was real, yes, but that didn’t mean she had to confront it. She had to do something.

  
 _Murder_ , a voice hissed from within. Astrid tilted her head back and took a sip, frowning. Klaus wouldn’t take his eyes off her, sensing something was wrong.

  
 _You’re all alone in your home with this man. Why not turn him into a dead body, too?_ _He’d be honored. Dead bodies are worth more than living ones, aren’t they?_ On cue, Astrid glanced at the entrance to the kitchen. The knife rack on the counter was more than visible, next to the teapot steaming on the stovetop. The idea appealed to her—what better way, it seemed, for Klaus to be honored than for him to be dead? That is what people wanted, it seemed.

  
“I’m going to get more tea,” She whispered and stood up, making her way to the kitchen. Once there, Astrid set down her cup and stared at the knife rack—those glistening, silver blades were beckoning her to take one and kill. She wanted to. Slowly, she gripped the handle of a weapon and pulled it from the rack—a tad dull, but still sharp enough to cut cleanly through flesh. Her grasp closed around it tightly, and she smiled when she walked back to the living room, knife in hand.

  
“Klaus… thank you.” She nodded stiffly as she stepped close. He noticed the knife; immediately, he stood up and backed away. Astrid held out her free hand. “I have a reason for this, so don’t be scared.”

  
“... Astrid…?” The maus-eared artist called out cautiously, stepping back against the wall furthest from the window. “What… what are you doing? Stop th-that, it’s not… not funny…?!”

  
“I am being not funny.” She corrected him coldly. “This is for you.” Frightened, the man stared at her, panic flickering like flames in his eyes.

  
“Are you mad at me?” He gritted his teeth. Astrid could imagine driving the pressure from the blade into his skin, cutting through veins and tissue like paper. She could tell he wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go—she blocked the way. He kept trying to talk—a man of reservation, his fear was a nearly silent kind. He wouldn’t die fighting or screaming or crying. “This isn’t… about Stuart, is it? Don’t be mad. I am sad for it, too. You don’t… oh, Astrid, it isn’t like you…”

  
“I’m not mad.” She shook her head, keeping an even pace towards him.

  
“Then… why…?” Klaus was shivering now, his normally squinted eyes wide in disbelief.

  
She only stared back at her friend. He probably had the same thoughts as the rest of them—the dead ones were to be honored, even though it didn’t matter. If she killed him, and if he joined the pile of corpses in her memory, he’d know somehow it just didn’t make a difference to do such a thing. He would _know_.

  
Then again, if he was dead, it wouldn’t matter then either. Slowly, she came back to her senses; for him to be alive, he could still do all the things a living person could. Life was a priority over honor. He was worth more living than dead. Slowly, her grip on the knife loosened, and it eventually fell from her hand and kissed the floor with a loud, empty clatter.

  
“... What am I doing…?” Her eyes were fixed on Klaus, and she could feel her legs buckle underneath her weight.

  
“A-astrid…” Relief flooded the man’s body as she slumped to the floor, looking strangely numb and full of pain and bewilderment. He kneeled down and got close, sighing gratefully though still cautious in the slightest. “Why?”

  
“... I don’t know,” She mumbled, falling into his arms. “I feel… felt like… an idea was told me to kill you, but… really, I don’t want to do thing like that. I guess… it’s just… Stuart, you know… He’s… gone. For… some reason, I wanted that for you, too. But… it has no sense, when I think of it now. I don’t want to kill you. I really don’t.”

  
“It’s okay.” Klaus breathed gently, pushing the knife away with his free hand. “You must be feeling so strange now. Stuart is… was… a wonderful man who was with you always. Now he’s gone suddenly, and you don’t know what to do.”

  
Astrid wanted to cry, but she didn’t feel any grief forming in her eyes. It was just empty. In a way, Klaus was right—she didn’t know how to feel according to how she was expected to feel. She had seen depictions of loss in movies and books, and those who mourned would scream and sob and tear their hair out, and it all seemed so overdone to her. Yet, everyone she knew would react the same—with loud tears and wails. She started to wonder if she was the one in the wrong playing zone—if she had the wrong idea about grief. “I’m really sorry, Klaus.”

  
“It’s okay.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “I won’t tell anybody about… this. Nobody will have to know. I’ll put the knife back, and we can… move on.”

  
Astrid nodded, pulling away to let him pick the knife up and walk to the kitchen, sliding it back into the rack.   
“Are you mad at me?” She asked when he returned.

  
“I’m not. You’re only confused.”

  
She looked back at the floor. She did feel confused now. She staggered to her feet, feeling grateful for an understanding friend like Klaus. It really was a gift he was alive.

  
“You aren’t going to finish your tea?” He urged her. “We have time before we leave. Calm down.”

  
So Astrid acquired a new cup and sat down, feeling something good for the first time since Stuart stopped breathing. She felt grateful. Now, in these quiet moments, she would enjoy time well spent with this friend of hers, living down the hollow space in her heart. In a few short hours, they would leave her home to tell the others the bad news, and she would try her best to mourn with them—whatever that felt like.

  
_Damn these dead fucking bodies._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm considering writing a "bad ending" for this where Astrid goes ahead and kills Klaus. Let me know...


End file.
